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Magical economy
1. Iron, salt, and other magically producible materials cost 1/50th the current listed price. Most of this would be the cost of transportation from the location of the nearest wizard running an ironmongery or salt production business, basically figuring that transportation is being done by Teleport. High level wizards can still live comfortably on the byproducts of their daily spells, but it doesn't become quite as obscene. 2. All other materials that can be produced by way of Polymorph Any Object are often available in faux polymorphed form (susceptible to dispelling, of course) at one quarter normal cost. PaO is a fairly high level spell, so this only applies to high magic areas. 3. Magically produced wealth and material components, including things generated by Wish, is 'soulless' without appropriate XP investiture and therefore cannot be used for material components of spells or for item crafting. 4. Permanent magic items are not publicly sold for mere wealth - someone selling a magic item will always want to barter for another magic item or set of items, favors, noble deeds, etc. The party can sell magic items for mundane wealth if they wish, and they will find buyers easily. Rationale: every magic item requires the permanent expenditure of xp, which one could consider to be life energy, soul, etc, and so most of the time a wizard would never bother using magic item trade to make money when they can just use wall of salt/etc to make a good living income. Existing magic items are rare enough that there isn't a stable market. Addendum: To preserve some semblance of being able to purchase items, allow xp to be transferred from a third party for the creation of magic items. Local spellcasters will accept payment in xp to make items for the party, but they take twice the amount needed for crafting and use the extra to make items for themselves. Thus the item economy becomes one of soul/life-force/whatever instead of gold. Bonus points for making the transference creepy. 5. Costs for employing all characters are severely increased, and characters above level 9 generally cannot be hired for mere wealth as they're trivially living the high life off of magic at that point - it'd be like paying people living next to a great lake in units of water. Adventurer Magic Items We're not talking brooms of dusting and sound proof windows. A noble worth their money will have connections to get these things made for his household. These are baubles. We're not talking about potions or scrolls either, these should be available for characters to purchase and their pricing, XP cost, and ease of creation justify their relative availability. What we are talking about "adventurer class items." These are items that require 100+ XP to craft, things that cost 2,500gp on the market, things that cost a serious 1,250 gold just to craft. The cost of these items is not a small investment, even though 2,500gp really is the bottom of the barrel for more adventurer class magic items. The Nature of the Magic Item Market Most magic that's out there for sale has effects that rely more on the power of suggestion and superstition than any real magic, such as a ring of love's eternal hope or a pendant of fertility. Sure, there are a few merchants and circles that deal with the good stuff, but this is fairly uncommon and they require certain connections; they don't just deal with anyone. After all, we're talking about large amounts of money here. Real magic item shops don't usually advertise, often bear no signs, and their location and reputation spreads only by select word of mouth by those "in the know." In a large city, such as Bluewater (pop ~150,000), you might expect to find one, maybe two such shops. These vendors don't actually make the items, they don't have the experience to spend on such things, instead they operate as a select consignment. Which means, that unless someone is looking to get rid of something then it probably isn't for sale anywhere. Other items of a potentially destructive nature are carefully watched by the city. Items like wands of lightning become very dangerous when they fall into the hands of a criminal or negligent bearer, and so the city naturally takes an interest in who buys and who might sell such a thing. For this reason, people sell items of this caliber to people they can trust, though occasionally they are also sold on the black market for less reputable enterprises. Either way, one needs connections for this kind of thing. Due to all these things, one needs to either find their way into an organization with the means to create its own items or which has connections to those who do, or one needs to make inroads into the rather select market where items occasionally come up for sale. Even so, expect things that are of common use to people with money; not adventurers, but wealthy merchants and nobles. They are things you might see when a noble house goes bankrupt and needs to make some quick money without losing too much of its comfort. They aren't selling family heirlooms, but they will probably sell their magic air fresheners and mirrors of attire choosing. Adventurers do sell stuff, we can't deny that. They sell used wands that don't have enough oomph anymore or weird curiosities that they've stumbled across while poking around in ruins like beholder shaped magical robots, +1 chain mail, and the like. Very few adventurers are there out there are powerful enough that they are willing to part with their gauntlets of ogre power and other useful adventuring gear. These things do enter the market, but rarely. Most items purchased, found, or crafted by adventurers are not outgrown anyway, but instead they end up lost and sitting in the lair of whatever ate their bearer rather than on the open market five experience levels later. More often than not one needs to have the items created that one wants. Buying an Item Off the Market A variety of methods are available. Typically, through connections, one begins to develop a reputation amongst a select circle of interested parties as a person of good repute and reliability. In the case of a buyer, this is someone who promptly pays their bills. For a seller, this is someone who doesn't misrepresent their wares and who can keep a secret. People who trade in such things would rather the government didn't know about it because if the government did, they'd probably start charging some tax and regulating it. Establishing a reputation of trustworthiness, good repute, and reliability takes some time and requires that one spends a good amount of time in the community beforehand so that one has an actual reputation. Getting into such circles typically requires some kind of sponsor as well, someone who already does trade in that circle. Established members of mages guilds, guild leaders and high ranking officers of other significant city guilds, nobles that display an interest in such things, and well known adventurers all might be allowed into such circles after a certain amount of scrutiny by its existing members. Most of the time, someone who has an interest in procuring a magic item and who spends enough time looking into how to get it will eventually hear by word-of-mouth that so-and-so has the right connections. This so-and-so is probably a member of some magic item consignment circle and they act as a middle man to the interested party if such an item is actually available. If so-and-so was good friends with the interested buying party they might even introduce them to the consignment circle when it was obvious that they had something to contribute. Buying items in this fashion usually involves some markup as the item exchanges through the network. Then, there's the black market. Naturally there are some risks involved. You might pay less than you expected, but you might also get junk, cursed, or otherwise misrepresented items. Black marketeers are frowned on by established circles of consignment dealers, and occasionally friction develops between these circles as one attempts to keep the market legitimate and the other attempts to cut a better profit. Of course, there are also direct sales, this typically occurs when an adventurer offers to sell used items to some mages guild, religious order, or a known curator of items. High-class adventurer taverns in rich cities can provide great inroads for adventurers hoping to find true one-on-one sales that can be completed over a good beer. As with any of these methods, the actual availability of a specific item is often in doubt and one frequently has to resort to having the item created new. Paying Someone to Make an Item Because it takes so much time and energy to create a powerful or unique item, wizards who actually make and sell magic items for a living typically only produce baubles of minor effect and then sell them at reasonable prices. These items rarely are usually no more powerful than your typical 1st or 2nd level potion. Many wizards tend to look down upon wizards who do trade in magic items, and with good reason. Trade wizards rarely have much adventuring experience, and they sometimes lack in ethics. Wizards who do make items of real use to adventurers and similarly powerful people tend to be cautious about who they make such items for. Most wizards would rather not be the one who made the +2 dagger that was used to assassinate a local baron, especially when the authorities come asking questions. And besides, a wizard can live fairly comfortably making baubles that require no serious investment of experience points. Having found a person who can do it (Gather Information checks), you have to convince them to do it (Diplomacy/Charisma), which rapidly becomes more difficult the more powerful the item is. Roughly speaking, a DC 10 plus the creator's level might be reasonable. This is assuming they are receptive to the idea of making items for strangers of course. Naturally, this can be much easier when one adventures with someone who has the skills to actually make items, but we all know this isn't always an option. Category:Economy